Elder Scrolls The appeal of Skyrim

[Kyl Von Kull]

The day of reckoning will come - I predict at some point in the early 2020s - when people on the Codex finally realise that Skyrim is basically just Morrowind with janky action combat instead of janky RPG combat, and no spellmaker. Other than those differences, both are games about walking around, getting ultra-linear quests, beating the shit out of 85% of individuals you meet, meeting boring NPCs, stuffing your inventory with relics and equipment you'll never use like the Gauntlets of Unending Wanking, and reading books. I like both games btw.

Eh, I don't enjoy any of the elder scrolls games, though Daggerfall was an okay time waster as a kid. But this is like saying Fallout: New Vegas is basically just Fallout 3 with better content. Trivially true because that "better content" goes a long way.

Sure, Morrowind shares most of Skyrim's flaws. People love it because they enjoy tooling around with the magic system and they like the setting, which is a hell of a lot more interesting than Oblivion or Skyrim. Skyrim is like a gigantic bowl of oatmeal and Morrowind is like a smaller bowl of oatmeal flavored with cinnamon and maybe some apples. Though, personally, I'd rather eat real food, some people who can't stand plain oatmeal will eat that shit up when you add a little flavor.

 

[smaug]

Most people voted:

Yes, it was alright, but I got bored with it.

Does this mean the majority of the codex is alright with Skyrim?

 

[Nano]

Can't see the results because it requires voting and none of the options apply to me. Fuck the OP for not including a kingcomrade/never played it option.

 

[PetrusDisputator]

Something I haven't seen mentioned is how varied the combat in Skyrim actually is. Creating hybrid characters that make use of the synergies between the individual systems (e.g., a thief/conjurer who attacks from cover while the enemies are distracted by the summoned monsters, etc.) is pretty fun. And unlike most role-playing games, in which your choice of character doesn't really affect the game mechanics all that much (there is a difference between giving you different abilities to use within existing mechanics and actually offering new mechanics altogheter), in Skyrim melee combat, ranged combat, the schools of magic, and stealth use separate mechanics, making different characters actually feel different to play.

I believe what Bethesda is trying to do with the Elder Scrolls games (or at least, what they should be trying to do) is to make an Immersive-Sim RPG hybrid, where the different interlocking gameplay systems you'd find in an immersive sim correspond to the different classes/builds you can choose. How much they succeed at this depends on how much time you're willing to invest in modding the game.

Of course mods can't fix the samey level design and bad writing, which is a shame, because I think the kind of game I'm describing here would have a lot of potential if done well.

 

[Quillon]

Skyrim's character/leveling system is good, everything else scaling to it is shit.

 

[MWaser]

The day of reckoning will come - I predict at some point in the early 2020s - when people on the Codex finally realise that Skyrim is basically just Morrowind with janky action combat instead of janky RPG combat, and no spellmaker. Other than those differences, both are games about walking around, getting ultra-linear quests, beating the shit out of 85% of individuals you meet, meeting boring NPCs, stuffing your inventory with relics and equipment you'll never use like the Gauntlets of Unending Wanking, and reading books.

This is just faulty analytical methodology to begin with. When you cherry-pick specific aspects to compare, you can make claims that 2 analyzed things are either completely different or nigh-identical. By hand-waving major aspects as just "one difference" and listing out meaningless details multiple times, such as 'walking around' being needlessly mentioned, you make the longer phrasing of the second part of the sentence, the "same things" about those two games, longer in text and therefore appearing like there really are more similarities to the negligent reader.

Ignoring the fact that the basic, major gameplay mechanics of the games are much different come Skyrim than they were in Morrowind, the "similarities" listed apply to any large number of computer role playing games. I won't bother denouncing any particular points you've made or listing out differences as it would be a similar kind of exercise in cherry-picking that would prove nothing, I think pointing out that this statement is forced is sufficient.

Either way, a lot of nuances that differ between the games that lead up to the final experience and later retrospection of the games (and this applying not just to Morrowind and Skyrim, but really any medium) are what really get people to differentiate their preferences, and choosing to ignore their existence by argumentation that is as good as saying "Well, I don't see the differences from my perspective, so they don't really exist" is, well, ignorant.

 

[Makabb]

There is no appeal, it's shit, with elder scrolls it's the other way around, the further you go back, the better they get.

 

[Quillon]

with elder scrolls it's the other way around, the further you go back, the better they get.

you mean codex' philosophy on everything.

 

[Chunkyman]

It was playable (eventually) but lazily made and boring. Skyrim was pretty much the nail in the coffin for the series after some of the questionable decisions in Oblivion (although I think Oblivion is a good game overall).

Also, I miss TemplarGR's stupid threads where he got really butthurt when no one agreed with him.

 

[Atchodas]

Skyrim with couple hundred mods is not that bad 7/10 game, without mods 2/10

 

[Lemming42]

Ignoring the fact that the basic, major gameplay mechanics of the games are much different come Skyrim than they were in Morrowind

Elaborate on this? Strip away the Elder Scrolls setting trappings and look purely at the mechanics, and the "blueprint" (so to speak) for both games is near-identical - 3D open world roaming with a focus on exploring dungeons and amassing loot in a world filled with cookie-cutter NPCs and linear quests designed chiefly to get the player exploring, give lore tidbits, and usually end up with a reward of some more loot. The only substantial mechanical difference between the games as far as I can see is the combat (and spellmaker), which I already identified.

Either way, a lot of nuances that differ between the games that lead up to the final experience and later

Can you describe the "nuances"? Despite what you think, there was no sleight of hand to my post - I'm genuinely a fan of both games who's sunk countless hours into each, and I legitimately see little difference between them beyond Morrowind having a better-realised setting and each game having its own different type of crap combat.

I won't bother denouncing any particular points you've made or listing out differences as it would be a similar kind of exercise in cherry-picking that would prove nothing, I think pointing out that this statement is forced is sufficient.

Sufficient to make your post nigh-impossible to reply to, maybe... it's tough to get a conversation out of broad references to "nuances" and "major gameplay mechanics" with no explanation as to what you're referring to.

 

[Funposter]

Elaborate on this? Strip away the Elder Scrolls setting trappings and look purely at the mechanics, and the "blueprint" (so to speak) for both games is near-identical - 3D open world roaming with a focus on exploring dungeons and amassing loot in a world filled with cookie-cutter NPCs and linear quests designed chiefly to get the player exploring, give lore tidbits, and usually end up with a reward of some more loot. The only substantial mechanical difference between the games as far as I can see is the combat (and spellmaker), which I already identified.

The context of dungeon crawling in Morrowind and Skyrim is entirely different, primarily because Skyrim's dungeons are self-contained experiences focused on environmental storytelling. Morrowind's mainly exist to house quest objectives for the ten joinable factions. Morrowind also has a less of a "loop" centred on amassing loot, since dungeons do not respawn, and all loot is hand-placed. It would probably be accurate to say that Morrowind does not have a "gameplay loop" as such, which is the primary factor differentiating it and Oblivion/Skyrim. The player is forced to seek out new environments and engage with the several joinable factions (or circumvent them) if they want the best equipment. In OB and SK, you can just grind out the same few dungeons around your town of choice if you're so inclined. This is partially what contributes to every playthrough of those games feeling exactly the same.

 

[Lemming42]

Those are good points, especially the one about respawning dungeons and level-scaled loot making Skyrim dungeon crawling different from Morrowind. Although I feel like while there's technically no gameplay loop in Morrowind, the experience ultimately ends up being similar to Skyrim for most players given that I'd assume most Skyrim players will choose not to revisit the same handful of dungeons over and over.

I'm a little less convinced by the factions thing because in my experience the exploration in both games becomes almost entirely self-directed after a certain point. I've always felt that the quests in TES games are basically just window dressing, really existing only to suggest a route to you or nudge you towards certain content. For me at least, the bulk of both games is independent, undirected exploration of the world map, wandering into quest objective areas without necessarily even realising.

 

[anvi]

The fact that anyone thinks Skyrim's combat is even close to acceptable, is testament to how bad mainstream RPGs are. Even if people had played something like Tome4 they would have more of an idea what they are missing out on, or the old AD&D games, they would at least know what spells you can have. Time Stop, etc. The problem is that the average mainstream gamer only knows Skyrim and now Witcher 3 and that's all they think RPGs are. I could live with the boring exploration, terrible story, quests and voice acting, but weak combat is a deal breaker for me. I've played things that are so much better, I just can't go this far back.

For a Ranger build I would need to be able to have a movement buff spell, poison arrows, arrows that can't hurt undead, magic arrows that can, fire arrows that cause damage over time but heal any fire creatures, rain of arrows that hits multiple targets but lower damage, some way to ensnare the enemy so I can kite them around while shooting at them, an animal companion that has a chance to stun or knock enemies over, a coat of thorns that damage enemies that hit me, charm animal spell, calm animal spell, and preferably to work in a way that requires strategy. All this at the absolute basics, but preferably a lot more on top of it.

For a Mage I need to be able to control the pet. Attack my target, back off, don't assist me, wait here, etc. Basic pet controls. Mana should be balanced so you can kill an enemy but it is a tough fight. Direct damage spells that use a lot of mana, damage over time that are more mana efficient, some sort of aggro system so enemies will attack your pet unless you do a lot of damage and then they change target to you instead. Teleports/blink. Summon different types of pets that have different effects, a storm pet that slows the movement of enemies, a fire pet that damages enemies that hit it, a stone golem that is tanky, a wolf or something that is weak but does a lot of damage. Lifetap, poison, heals for the pet, strength buff for pet, wave of enfeeblement to weaken enemies, infectious cloud to poison or disease enemies, brief damage shield, etc. It should be balanced so that you are squishy and die in a few hits, but your magic is strong enough that you can survive if you play smart. A stun that stuns anything around you for 5 seconds to give you time to either ensnare and kite something, charm an enemy, sleep an enemy, or run away. You should be able to build the class in multiple ways, a pet focused one where you hide behind the pet and give him heals and buffs. Or an offensive magic build where you nuke stuff and use lightning blasts that stun enemies to slow their attacks on you. Or a trickster build where you poison an enemy and then vanish for 5 seconds and run across the room, invis fades and enemy comes running at you. Once he arrives, you teleport back to your original position. Etc... Gameplay. Stuff I've played in games 20 years ago. None of which exists in this retarded game of squirting fireballs out your fingers.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Actually Skyrim has all sorts of magic effects. Frost slows enemies, fire burns them over time, lightning drains magicka, etc.. You can summon different types of pets and give followers basic instructions. It's not as bad as it's made out to be.

 

[anvi]

It has a few effects, but they aren't used well. It needs more effects, and they need to be balanced properly. The game got zero balance... At low levels with a mage, you run up to a guy, squirt some fire in his face and end up completely out of 'magicka', and then you have to run away or run in circles Benny Hill style while it slowly regenerates and you squirt him some more. If there are 2 bad guys you either have to exploit their stupid AI by leading 1 away while the other one returns back, or you have to pause the game and eat a bunch of cheese. It is really bad. Then at higher levels you can 1 shot enemies from miles away with a single fireball. Elder Scrolls Online's combat is about 1000 times better in every way. If they put that in a game like Skyrim, it would blow peoples minds. Although even ESO could be boring unless you did weird things like try to solo a world boss with a build that heals you and does damage too. But that's another problem with games like Skyrim, they can't have tough challenges because the average dudebro console tard couldn't handle it. Yet someone like me who can play action games and strategy too, just gets no challenge or excitement. Difficulty levels don't work because they make every single random wolf into a world boss which gets old fast.

Also pets are really worthless. They die too fast, you can't heal them, they can't hold aggro, you can't tell them to change target and help you finish off the guy you are attacking etc. It is really bad. Try Everquest, it has amazing combat and it was doing it 20+ years ago with a tiny budget. AD&D but in real time. That's what I would want the most, but I would even take modern MMO combat over Skyrim. WoW actually has some amazing combat, the Druid was exceptional. You shapeshift into a tiger and sneak around in stealth, and then you attack from behind and do backstab bonus damage, you can do some special attacks that open wounds that cause damage over time. Then when the enemy starts fighting for its life, you shapeshift into a bear which is really tanky, stuns the attacker, mitigates damage, etc. Then when the enemy is nearly beat and starts running away, you shapeshift into an spell caster and blast it with moonbeams or whatever. I had 100000 battles in that game and never got bored because it worked in such an interesting way. In Skyrim I was bored in the first 2 hours.

 

[anvi]

It is so far behind games like that, but they can get away with it because it is mostly a console game and console gamers have never played an MMO. They don't know how far behind it is.

 

[jebsmoker]

like a few other people here have argued - bethesda has more or less mastered an engaging and addictive gameplay loop, but the worldbuilding and writing in skyrim just doesn't hold a candle to morrowind

 

[Funposter]

Actually Skyrim has all sorts of magic effects. Frost slows enemies, fire burns them over time, lightning drains magicka, etc.. You can summon different types of pets and give followers basic instructions. It's not as bad as it's made out to be.

Skyrim's barebones number of magical effects would be perfectly fine if you could use a spellmaker to combine them, or at least tweak damage numbers. If that were available, it would arguably be more complex than what is available in Morrowind, or at least more dynamic in terms of combat. They sort of tried to compensate for this with the "dual-handed" casting system, allowing you to spray lightning and fire at the same time, but then you get to higher level spells and a single effect requires you to use both hands. Is there any good reason that I shouldn't be able to make a spell that combines all three of Flames, Sparks and Frostbite, and tweak the damage to absurd numbers? Why can't I create elemental Rune spells that also apply Paralysis to anybody who steps on them?

Sure, you wouldn't be able to Levitate, use Jump and Slowfall spells etc. but at least you would be able to use your imagination to make combat more interesting. There are 'Wall of [x]' spells that do what you'd think. Why can't I create a Fire Wall that also applies a Slowing effect (either by Frost, or some other mechanism) forcing enemies that walked into the wall to take more damage over time than they normally would have? It's this sort of thing that makes playing a Mage in these games fun, because you can let your imagination run wild.

 

[anvi]

like a few other people here have argued - bethesda has more or less mastered an engaging and addictive gameplay loop, but the worldbuilding and writing in skyrim just doesn't hold a candle to morrowind

What gameplay loop do you think they have mastered? Get a generic quest, go kill/fetch whatever it is, repeat over and over? Games were doing that long before Bethesda and there are games that do a far better job of it.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I beat Skyrim a long time ago and it was easy and forgettable. I played a Dunmer Ranger/Illusionist and fired my bow from a distant hill while my buddies were kind enough to melee the creature to death. I never got hit once in that fight. Later I read that the boss does get tough if you play at level 40+. I didn't do any of the side quests and just stuck to the main one, so when I beat the game I was just under level 20. I found the game to be bland and grim dark for the sake of grim dark, so I quit there. No side quests, no nothing.

Over the last few years, I kept seeing articles with people saying how interesting the side quests are and how much better they are in comparison to the main quest. So a couple weeks ago I ran Skyrim again, this time the SSE version with all the DLCs. I'm playing an elven wizard to try the magic out. I heard the Companion quest line was the best, so I started there, but I swear those fuckers irritate the hell out of me with their snide remarks every time I ask them a fucking question. And the reveal that they were werewolves came too quickly. And being a werewolf doesn't seem to have any real penalties except you can't get a rested bonus. If that's it, then how come the Nords don't just infect their whole population and wipe out the Dominion and Imperials?

I then tried the Wizard quest line and it was pretty cool at first, but has now devolved into dungeon crawling fetch quests. At least the first cave had some interesting stuff to it... I'll probably come back to this one and hope the initial charm returns.

I tried the Hearthfire DLC and thought having a large home would be cool. A spacious place to store some cooler items... then the game expected me to go get my own building materials like this was some sort of Minecraft mod. Quit that quick.

Hey what about side quests... I saw mention of a talking dog one that sounded cool... until the mutt had me follow him through a hostile bandit fortress which was in between where I met him and the next quest location.

I did a difficult Daedric quest when I found a jewel in a bandit camp and had to restore her powers to her place of worship. Man, that was cool just because of what a surprise that was. And restoring her shrine was great. And then a bug caused her to drop me from the atmosphere and I died and had to reload and do the final fucking fight three times before I passed it again... then the bug happened again. I had to cheat with a god-mode code so I could continue the fucking game, and so my character would get back up after being dropped from 1000 feet up. Then the artifact sword I received as a reward was barely better than the one I was already using.... fuck!

Oh, and because I have been focusing on Destruction spells I'm really squishy. I thought being a wizard would be cool, but I should of stuck with physical attacks. My guy keeps leveling up due to skills that have nothing to do with magic. For instance, my speech keeps climbing from interacting with shops. The enemies keep getting tougher since they are pure combat builds with equipment that keeps improving, but my wizard doesn't seem to keep up. In fact, I seemed to have better luck when I ran out of mana and picked up a sword, even though my sword skill was much lower than my Destruction and I've been focusing on Magicka every time I level up. So, just like fucking Oblivion, Skyrim penalizes you for leveling up, which is the exact fucking opposite of what an open world game should do.

I do think it looks and feels better than Oblivion, but at least Oblivion had some interesting quests like that time you go into a painting, and the other time that you had to assassinate a bunch of unsuspecting people in a manner. I'm trying guys... I'm trying to find the wonder here that people keep telling me about, but it's just not happening. Ah well... at least some modders gave us Estrus for Skyrim.

 

[Danikas]

Something I haven't seen mentioned is how varied the combat in Skyrim actually is. Creating hybrid characters that make use of the synergies between the individual systems (e.g., a thief/conjurer who attacks from cover while the enemies are distracted by the summoned monsters, etc.) is pretty fun. And unlike most role-playing games, in which your choice of character doesn't really affect the game mechanics all that much (there is a difference between giving you different abilities to use within existing mechanics and actually offering new mechanics altogheter), in Skyrim melee combat, ranged combat, the schools of magic, and stealth use separate mechanics, making different characters actually feel different to play.

I believe what Bethesda is trying to do with the Elder Scrolls games (or at least, what they should be trying to do) is to make an Immersive-Sim RPG hybrid, where the different interlocking gameplay systems you'd find in an immersive sim correspond to the different classes/builds you can choose. How much they succeed at this depends on how much time you're willing to invest in modding the game.

Of course mods can't fix the samey level design and bad writing, which is a shame, because I think the kind of game I'm describing here would have a lot of potential if done well.

 

[d1nolore]

I thought Skyrim was kind of bland and boring. Does it do anything better than Oblivion?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

skyrim is a decent grand theft dragon (if gta4 has been considered a masterpiece... this pisses all over it) which can be improved tremendously by mods despite extreme limits of its engine. but it's as much a role playing game as diablo is.

I thought Skyrim was kind of bland and boring. Does it do anything better than Oblivion?

even dry shit does everything better than oblivion.

 

[Butter]

I thought Skyrim was kind of bland and boring. Does it do anything better than Oblivion?

It has a prettier over-world. The perk tree is theoretically more interesting than just getting minor bonuses every milestone, although the vanilla perks are rather boring. Most of the underlying systems are equivalent or worse.